Running for Governor by Mark Twain
Running for Governor
by Mark Twain
A few months ago, I was nominated for Governor of the great state of New York, to run against Mr. John T. Smith and Mr. Blank J. Blank on an independent ticket. I somehow felt that I had one prominent advantage over these gentlemen, and that was--good character. It was easy to see by the newspapers that if ever they had known what it was to bear a good name, that time had gone by. It was plain that in these latter years they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at the very moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret, there was a muddy undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the deeps of my happiness, and that was--the having to hear my name bandied about in familiar connection with those of such people. I grew more and more disturbed. Finally, I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer came quick and sharp. She said:
You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed of--not one. Look at the newspapers--look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a public canvass with them.
It was my very thought! I did not sleep a single moment that night. But, after all, I could not recede.
I was fully committed, and must go on with the fight. As I was looking listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across this paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so confounded before.
PERJURY.--Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a candidate for Governor, he will condescend to explain how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement and desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself, as well as to the great people whose suffrages he asks, to clear this matter up. Will he do it?
I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless charge! I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did not know what to do. I was crazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything at all. The next morning the same paper had this--nothing more:
SIGNIFICANT.--Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively silent about the Cochin China perjury.
[Mem.--During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me in any other way than as "the infamous perjurer Twain."]
Next came the Gazette, with this:
WANTED TO KNOW.--Will the new candidate for Governor deign to explain to certain of his fellow-citizens (who are suffering to vote for him!) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in Montana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in his "trunk" (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred and feathered him, and rode him on a rail; and then advised him to leave a permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in the camp. Will he do this?
Could anything be more deliberately malicious than that? For I never was in Montana in my life.
[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me as, "Twain, the Montana Thief."]
I got to picking up papers apprehensively--much as one would lift a desired blanket which he had some idea might have a rattlesnake under it. One day this met my eye:
THE LIE NAILED.--By the sworn affidavits of Michael O'Flanagan, Esq., of the Five Points, and Mr. Snub Rafferty and Mr. Catty Mulligan, of Water Street, it is established that Mr. Mark Twain's vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard- bearer, Blank J. Blank, was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous LIE, without a shadow of foundation in fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted to, to achieve political success as the attacking of the dead in their graves, and defiling their honored names with slander. When we think of the anguish this miserable falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted public to summary and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer. But no! let us leave him to the agony of a lacerated conscience (though if passion should get the better of the public, and in its blind fury they should do the traducer bodily injury, it is but too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish the perpetrators of the deed).
The ingenious closing sentence had the effect of moving me out of bed with despatch that night, and out at the back door also, while the "outraged and insulted public" surged in the front way, breaking furniture and windows in their righteous indignation as they came, and taking off such property as they could carry when they went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the Book and say that I never slandered Mr. Blank's grandfather. More: I had never even heard of him or mentioned him up to that day and date.
[I will state, in passing, that the journal above quoted from always referred to me afterward as "Twain, the Body-Snatcher."]
The next newspaper article that attracted my attention was the following:
A SWEET CANDIDATE.--Mr. Mark Twain, who was to make such a blighting speech at the mass-meeting of the Independents last night, didn't come to time! A telegram from his physician stated that he had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places--sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night in a state of beastly intoxication. It is the imperative duty of the Independents to prove that this besotted brute was not Mark Twain himself. We have them at last! This is a case that admits of no shirking. The voice of the people demands in thunder tones, "WHO WAS THAT MAN?"
It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it was really my name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Three long years had passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine or liquor or any kind.
[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say that I saw myself, confidently dubbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain" in the next issue of that journal without a pang--notwithstanding I knew that with monotonous fidelity the paper would go on calling me so to the very end.]
By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important part of my mail matter. This form was common
How about that old woman you kiked of your premises which
was beging. POL. PRY.
And this:
There is things which you Have done which is unbeknowens to anybody
but me. You better trot out a few dots, to yours truly, or you'll
hear through the papers from
HANDY ANDY.
This is about the idea. I could continue them till the reader was surfeited, if desirable.
Shortly the principal Republican journal "convicted" me of wholesale bribery, and the leading Democratic paper "nailed" an aggravated case of blackmailing to me.
[In this way I acquired two additional names: "Twain the Filthy Corruptionist" and "Twain the Loathsome Embracer."]
By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an "answer" to all the dreadful charges that were laid to me that the editors and leaders of my party said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent any longer. As if to make their appeal the more imperative, the following appeared in one of the papers the very next day:
BEHOLD THE MAN!--The independent candidate still maintains silence. Because he dare not speak. Every accusation against him has been amply proved, and they have been indorsed and reindorsed by his own eloquent silence, till at this day he stands forever convicted. Look upon your candidate, Independents! Look upon the Infamous Perjurer! the Montana Thief! the Body-Snatcher! Contemplate your incarnate Delirium Tremens! your Filthy Corruptionist! your Loathsome Embracer! Gaze upon him--ponder him well--and then say if you can give your honest votes to a creature who has earned this dismal array of titles by his hideous crimes, and dares not open his mouth in denial of any one of them!
There was no possible way of getting out of it, and so, in deep humiliation, I set about preparing to "answer" a mass of baseless charges and mean and wicked falsehoods. But I never finished the task, for the very next morning a paper came out with a new horror, a fresh malignity, and seriously charged me with burning a lunatic asylum with all its inmates, because it obstructed the view from my house. This threw me into a sort of panic. Then came the charge of poisoning my uncle to get his property, with an imperative demand that the grave should be opened. This drove me to the verge of distraction. On top of this I was accused of employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to prepare the food for the foundling' hospital when I warden. I was wavering--wavering. And at last, as a due and fitting climax to the shameless persecution that party rancor had inflicted upon me, nine little toddling children, of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness, were taught to rush onto the platform at a public meeting, and clasp me around the legs and call me PA!
I gave it up. I hauled down my colors and surrendered. I was not equal to the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the state of New York, and so I sent in my withdrawal from the candidacy, and in bitterness of spirit signed it, "Truly yours, once a decent man, but now
"MARK TWAIN, LP., M.T., B.S., D.T., F.C., and L.E."
(Acknowledgements: Hindi Granth Academy Bhopal. (MP) India)
Multiple Choice Questions
Q. 1 Mark Twain was nominated ......................
(a) to become the President of United States
(b) to become the Governor of New York.
(c) to run against Mr. John T Smith and Blank J Blank for the seat of Governor of New York.
(d) to run against Mr. John T Smith.
Answer:(c) to run against Mr. John T Smith and Blank J Blank for the seat of Governor of New York.
Q.2. Mark Twain thought that he had special advantage over other candidates because............
(a) He had a good character.
(b) He was very rich.
(c) Other candidates were unpopular.
(d) he was nominated.
Answer: (a) He had a good character.
Q.3. What was discomfort riling the deeps of his happiness?
(a) The discomfort was that he was unprepared to run for the Governor.
(b) He was not ready to run because he was tired.
(c) The discomfort was that he would have to spend a lot of money.
(d) The discomfort was that his name would be bandied with shameful crimes and such people.
Answer: (d) The discomfort was that his name would be bandied with shameful crimes and such people
Q.4. Why did Mark Twain write a letter to his grandmother?
(a) He wanted to take her opinion about his running for Governor.
(b) He wanted to take her blessings.
(c) He wanted to take her permission.
(d) He wanted inform his grandmother about his decision.
Answer:(a) He wanted to take her opinion about his running for Governor
Q. 5. How did grandmother respond to his letter?
(a) Grandmother said that he must run for the Governor.
(b) Grandmother said that she was not happy to know it.
(c) Grandmother said that I was lowering my social prestige and risking it.
(d) Grandmother said that a person like me did not deserve to run for Governor.
Answer: (d) Grandmother said that a person like me did not deserve to run for Governor.
Q. 6. A perjury is ..............
(a) telling a lie intentionally.
(b) telling a lie unintentionally.
(c) telling a lie in a court of law.
(d) telling a lie publicly.
Answer:(c) telling a lie in a court of law
Q. 7. According to newspaper, Mark Twain committed perjury.........
(a) in Cochin China.
(b) in Cochin India
(c) in Cochin Taiwan.
(d) in Cochin Japan.
Answer: (a) in Cochin China.
Q. 8. What does Montana Thief mean according to the journal?
(a) A thief from Montana stole valuables of Mark Twain.
(b) Mark Twain stole valuable of his cabin mate in Montana.
(c) Mark Twain was convicted for stealing valuables in Montana.
(d) His cabin mate found Mark Twain living with a thief.
Answer: Mark Twain stole valuable of his cabin mate in Montana.
(a) Yes, grandfather was hanged.
(b) No, it was a fake news spread by a newspaper.
(c) Blank J Blank accepted that it was true.
(d) Mark Twain spread false news.
Answer:(b) No, it was a fake news spread by a newspaper
Q. 10. What was the result of fake news about the grandfather of Blank J Blank.
(a) People attacked the home of Mark Twain.
(b) Mark Twain had to run away from home.
(c) Mark Twain had to call the police.
(d) both (a) and (b)
Answer: (d) both (a) and (b)
Q. 11. Was Mark Twain found intoxicated in a hotel?
(a) No he was not. It was a fake news.
(b) Yes he was. A man filmed him.
(c) No he was not but a man claimed to have him filmed intoxicated.
(d) Yes he was but there was no proof.
Answer: (a) No he was not. It was a fake news
Q. 12. Why did Mark Twain decide to answer all the baseless charges labelled on him?
(1) He became angry and could not help himself answering all the baseless charges.
(2) There was no way except answering the charges because he felt humiliated.
(3) His mother forced him.
(4) His father advised him to answer the charges.
Answer: (2) There was no way except answering the charges because he felt humiliated.
Q. 13. Why did Mark Twain burn a lunatic asylum?
(a) He did so because it obstructed the view from his house.
(b) Nothing happened like this. It was a fake news.
(c) He did it for the party.
(d) He wanted to get rid of asylum.
Answer: (b) Nothing happened like this. It was a fake news.
Q. 14. Why did Mark Twain decide to withdraw his name from candidacy?
(a) He surrendered before his rivals.
(b) He realized that it was impossible to answer all the fake charges and his good name would be spoiled.
(c) He surrendered before propaganda machinery.
(d) both (b) and (c)
Answer: (d) both (b) and (c)
(a) leader
(b) head
(c) a fool
(d) nonsense
Answer: (d) nonsense
Summary of Running for Governor by Mark Twain.
Mark Twain gets nominated for Governor for the great state of New York. He had to run against Mr. John T. Smith and Mr. Blank J. Blank on an independent ticket. He felt that he had an advantage over his two rivals and it was that he was a man of fame and good character. He was full of confidence and joy that this advantage would give him an easy victory over rivals but this joy and confidence was very short-lived. Very soon, his name began to be associated with bad people he never expected. He wrote a letter to his grand mother seeking advice on this matter. Grandmother advised him not to fight election because his name would be lowered to a very low level to which he does not deserve. But mark Twain does not recede from fighting election. Very soon, he has to face fake charges from several newspapers. A paper charges him of perjury in Cochin China where he never went. A gazette claims that he stole valuables of his cabinmate in Montana. Another establishes that Mark Twain made statement that the grandfather of Blank J. Blank was hanged for highway robbery. The paper claimed that Mark Twain resorted to inflicting filth of fake news upon dead people to get political advantage and it was very shameful. The result of this news was that people attacked his home and vandalized his furniture. It was good that he had already left his home in anticipation of attack. Another paper claimed that people saw him highly intoxicated. He started getting calls of threat also. The pressure started mounting onhim to answer all those false claims but he could give explanation one, there was another fake news in the newspaper. By this he had got several names like Infamous Perjurer, Montana Thief. Body Snatcher, Delirium Tremens, Filthy Corruptionist and Loathsome Embracer. Very soon, a paper claimed that I poisoned my uncle for property. Now it was clear that fake news propaganda will continue until he with draws his candidacy. This work of fighting election is fit for a person like him. His grandmother was right.
About Mark Twain
Mark Twain is an American humorist. novelist, journalist and lecturer. He acquired international fame by his travel narratives. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn brought him international fame. Mark Twain is his pseudonym. His real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was sixth child of his parents. He was prematurely born on 30 November 1835. He inherited humor from his mother. His father was a serious man. His father's business failed and debt increased. They had to move to Missouri state. After the death of his father, he had to do several odd jobs. He worked as an apprentice in printing press. later on he started publishing his own weekly newspaper. From journalism, he moved into writing and earned fame as a writer. He died on 21 April 1910.
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